Last Whisper (16 page)

Mrs. Camp’s hand fluttered to her throat. “My God, Brooke! How awful! I know about the blood on the roses when your mother died. Greta talked about it sometimes. But I had no idea Tavell had sent a rose to
you
. That’s despicable!”

“He’s a despicable human being. He hasn’t stopped with the murder of my mother or the torture of me.
He
caused my grandmother’s stroke. Literally. Mrs. Camp, he was here, in Grossmutter’s room.”

Mrs. Camp’s mouth opened slightly; then she vigorously shook her head. “No. That’s not possible.”

“I think it
is
possible. I just wanted you to help me find out how he managed it. After all, you’re closer to my grandmother now than even I am. You see her every day. You take special care of her.”

Mrs. Camp colored slightly. “I try to treat all the patients equally, but I have to admit I’ve always had a soft spot for Greta. I probably spend more time with her than I do with other patients. But that doesn’t mean I know how anyone could have gotten in here and scared her into a stroke. My goodness, Brooke, the doors automatically lock at eight. Afterward, no one can get in or out of here without setting off an alarm. I saw your grandmother having the stroke around midnight. That means Tavell would have needed to get in here before eight o’clock and spend the whole night until the doors were unlocked the next morning.”

“Which isn’t impossible.”

Mrs. Camp hesitated. “No, I guess it isn’t.”

“What I want to know is if you saw anyone or anything unusual that night, before or after my grandmother’s stroke. An orderly who didn’t look familiar? An ambulance attendant? Even a doctor?”

Mrs. Camp looked down at the table and frowned in thought. Finally she sighed and shook her head. “Nothing.
I can’t remember anything that seemed wrong. I’m sorry I can’t be of any help, but I just don’t remember anything odd about last night.”

“That’s all right,” Brooke said, unable to mask the disappointment in her voice. “It’s not your fault.”

“Brooke, I know I shouldn’t interfere, but don’t you think you should leave Charleston until this man is caught?”

“Yes, I should leave, but I can’t. Or rather, I
won’t
. My grandmother means more to me than anyone in the world and I don’t believe she’ll survive this stroke.” She smiled thinly. “It’s another one of those things I feel in my heart. I won’t leave her to die alone, Mrs. Camp. I would never forgive myself.”

“Brooke?”

She looked up to see Vincent Lockhart standing over her. His black hair glistened under the harsh fluorescent lights and his intense forest green eyes seemed to see only her. He wore dark slacks, a pale green shirt, and a perfect golden tan. Brooke thought he looked jaw-droppingly handsome, and the gaze Mrs. Camp fastened on his face told Brooke the nurse thought the same thing.

“What a surprise,” Brooke finally got out, dumbfounded by his presence.

Vincent held up a steaming Styrofoam cup. “I was just taking a tour, asking a few questions, and I felt like I needed a jolt of caffeine.”

“The coffee in the place will give you more than a jolt,” Mrs. Camp said. “Sometimes I think it’s pure caffeine with a little brown water mixed in.”

Vincent looked at the nurse and smiled. She smiled back. Brooke watched them intently for a moment, then jerked back to reality. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce you.” Brooke could feel her face getting pink and she sounded rattled. “Eileen Camp, this is Vincent Lockhart.” The two barely had time to exchange a greeting before Brooke rushed on. “Mrs. Camp has been a nurse for over twenty years and came to White Willows three years ago, just about the same time as my grandmother. Mrs. Camp, Vincent is from California. He’s an author.”

Mrs. Camp raised her straight eyebrows. “An author? How exciting! I’d like to be able to say I’ve read your books, but I stick to category romances and you don’t look like a romance writer to me.”

Vincent smiled. “No. I write true crime. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea.”

“Maybe not, but it’s quite impressive. I read the little romances because they don’t take a lot of concentration.” She abruptly rose from her seat. “Well, time for me to get back to work. I enjoyed the company, Brooke, if not the food. So nice to meet you, Mr. Lockhart. Wait until I tell my family I talked to a real author today!” She nearly tripped trying to escape and leave the two good-looking young people alone. “Bye, everyone!” she called, rushing out the door still holding her tray, which was supposed to be deposited on a conveyor belt that took it back to the kitchen.

“May I sit down?” Vincent asked Brooke, smiling slightly at Mrs. Camp’s flight from the cafeteria. Brooke wondered if the woman would slink back in with her tray or hold on to it until she and Vincent had left the room. She looked at Vincent and nodded.

He sat down and glanced at her fish. “That looks delicious.”

“I’m sure it would have been last week when it flopped up on the riverbank and died of old age.” She put down her fork and picked up the cup of lukewarm coffee. “What brings you to White Willows?”

“I’m not following you.”

“The thought never crossed my mind.”

“Sure it did.” Brooke colored. It
had
crossed her mind as soon as she’d seen him. “I’m here because of Dad,” Vincent said.

“He’s all right, isn’t he?”

“Actually, he’s sharp as a tack this morning, which makes me feel guilty for being here. But he’s only sharp half the time. The rest . . .” He shrugged. “He can’t live by himself much longer, and he’d never tolerate having a caregiver, some
stranger
messing around in Mom’s house. So, I’m checking out places for him. I put White Willows first on my list
because you said your grandmother was here and you seemed satisfied with her care.”

“I have been.”

“I guess you’re here visiting her today.”

Brooke paused. She’d already pulled this near stranger more deeply into her life than she had anyone for years except Stacy and Jay, but she heard herself opening up to him almost before she realized what she was saying. She told him all about Greta’s stroke and the woman’s claim that Zach had come into her room last night, telling her he intended to “get” Brooke. “She says that’s what caused her stroke,” Brooke said. “All the medical professionals seem to believe she was dreaming or the stroke jumbled her thoughts, but I believe her,” she ended firmly.

Brooke focused on Vincent’s eyes, waiting to see the first glimmer of doubt, the first desperate struggle for something insincere yet comforting to say. Instead, she saw in them only surprise and deep thought. Finally he said, “They already explained the security system to me on my tour. Now how did Tavell hang around in here unseen all night until the doors were unlocked and the alarm turned off?”

“You’re not going to tell me Grossmutter dreamed it or her thoughts are jumbled?”

“No. You know her intimately and something she said convinced you that she’s not mixed-up. That’s enough for me.”

Brooke felt a wave of relief and gratitude wash over her. She’d expected him to put up an argument, to tell her Greta had just imagined something and frightened her when she was already agitated. Instead, he had simply taken her word without explanation. He believed in her, and for some reason, she felt almost exultant. She was being silly, she told herself. Silly from nerves and anxiety. Maybe he was just one of those people who never rationalized bizarre explanations.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You look like you’re disappointed that I believe you.”

“I just didn’t expect you to. I don’t think anyone else does.”

“I’m not just anyone else.” Vincent reached toward his
pocket for a pack of cigarettes, forgetting he’d decided to quit three weeks ago. Thanks to nicotine patches, he hadn’t really wanted one until right now. He remembered he wasn’t allowed to smoke in the nursing home, and he picked up his cup of execrable coffee to keep his hands busy rather than longing to hold a long, menthol cigarette.

“Brooke, you know I write books about true crimes,” he began. “When I first started interviewing murderers, one of the things that shocked me was their desire to keep the game going, for a better phrase. Not all of them, of course, but quite a few. Many aren’t satisfied with having taken a life. They want to keep their adrenaline flowing by torturing the families of their victims. It gives them a rush.”

“That’s a hell of a way to get excitement,” Brooke said sadly.

“I agree, but these aren’t normal people. They’re sociopaths and psychopaths. Take Tavell, for instance. He could kill you without the frills—the rose, the notes. But just killing you wouldn’t give him the gratification that mentally torturing you does. He’s probably decided that if you hadn’t appeared from upstairs the night he killed your mother, you wouldn’t have distracted him, slowed him down, and he wouldn’t have gotten caught. And he certainly hasn’t forgiven you for your testimony in court. So, in his mind, it’s your fault he’s been suffering in prison all these years. Now it’s your turn to suffer, and for him, suffering means torturing your grandmother, whom he knows you love so much, as well as torturing you.” He paused. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to deliver a lecture. It must be all the caffeine in this coffee.”

“Then keep drinking it, because you just made perfect sense.”

Vincent grinned. “I
do
make perfect sense sometimes, but not very often. According to my father, rarely.”

“Your father is proud of you. He just doesn’t know how to show it.”

“You’re sure about that?” Vincent asked lightly but with an undertone of doubt.

“Yes. I can see it in his eyes when he looks at you.”

Vincent raised his eyebrows. “Are you trying to bolster my confidence, Miss Yeager?”

“No, I’m just observant. Besides, I don’t think your confidence really needs bolstering. Deep down, you know your father is proud of you.”

“Deep down, I’m not sure of that at all.” He gave her a slightly lopsided smile. “But let’s get back to the important subject—Zach Tavell. I don’t know why everyone you talk to seems to think it was impossible that he came in before the doors were locked, hid in a storage room for a few hours, came out to terrorize Greta, then returned to his hiding place or found a new one.” Vincent drained his coffee, looked at Brooke with an expression of a comrade. “So, we proceed with the assumption that Tavell
was
here.”

We, Brooke thought. Vincent had said “we proceed,” which meant unlike everyone else, he believed her. Suddenly, she didn’t feel so alone. Suddenly, she didn’t feel quite as frightened as she had just an hour earlier.

Eunice Dormer leaned back in her recliner, propping her swollen house-slippered feet on the battered ottoman, and listened to the supposedly heart-stirring music that introduced her favorite soap opera. She’d been a fan of the show for almost twenty years, but the last few months, her interest had begun to flag. Over half of the characters seemed to be under eighteen, and the show’s vixen was not only in the midst of ending her eighth marriage but also, even worse, showing her age everywhere except her forehead, lately frozen by Botox.

As the first scene opened, a fifteen-year-old couple sat on Astroturf edging an impossibly clear pond while they whined about their parents not understanding their undying love. Eunice sighed in annoyance and reached for one of her clove cigarettes. She smoked them partly because she craved their pungent, sweet taste and smell but also because she thought smoking them gave her an air of the exotic. Let other women puff away on their ordinary Vantages or Virginia Slims.

Long ago, Eunice’s beautiful mother with her many boyfriends and sexy clothes had smoked clove cigarettes. She’d gotten Eunice started on them when she was ten. Liz, as she insisted on being called instead of Mom, had thought a ten-year-old girl smoking clove cigarettes and sipping singlemalt scotch was hilarious. Her boyfriends had, too, before they shooed away Eunice so they could have some private time in the bedroom with Liz.

Liz had died long ago, but Eunice’s addiction to cigarettes and scotch lived on, although Harry had allowed her to continue buying clove cigarettes only if she compensated by drinking a cheaper scotch. A much cheaper scotch. Harry had been a disappointment to Eunice, but being uneducated, plain bordering on homely with her equine features, a diabetic, and an alcoholic, she’d had to take what she could get. Twenty years ago, Harry had been the only man even vaguely interested in marrying her, and that was because she was pregnant with his child. The child had lived only until age three, when it died of leukemia, but the marriage had drudged on for another seventeen mind-numbing years. They had nothing in common, but Eunice was an excellent cook and Harry was good at giving her the insulin injections she couldn’t bear to give herself. Also, both knew that other partners weren’t lining up for either of them.

After her child’s death, Eunice had slipped into a deep depression that lasted for several years. Some men would have left her, but Harry rode it out, although she knew he’d turned to other women to “help him through the bad time.” So, she’d stayed with him, even though their marriage made her feel as if her own life had turned to gray, with no excitement, no closeness, no passion. Just tolerance. At first, Eunice had tried to add a bit of excitement to her life by taking an interest in the tenants of the apartment buildings at which Harry was superintendent. Her interest was casual for a while, but over the years living vicariously through the tenants had become more intense, and during the last two years it had become an obsession for Eunice.

In fact, that obsession was tightening its grip on her.
Right now it was becoming intolerable. Eunice knew she was too nervous to sit quietly in her apartment one more minute. But she didn’t want to take a walk. The day was hot and humid. Even if it had been cooler, though, she wouldn’t have been tempted. People on the street weren’t interesting or diverting in the way she knew she needed to be diverted now. People in public knew they were on view, being observed. Only people who thought they had total privacy enthralled Eunice. Poking into people’s lives preoccupied her and, luckily, she had the perfect means to accomplish her goal—Harry’s set of master keys to the apartments. The set of keys represented the gateway to a dozen worlds full of people with captivating surprises and intriguing secrets.